TORONTO OF OLD. 



433 



■bulks lying one over the other in a titanic confusion worthy of a sketch Toy Core in illustration 

 of Dante ; their heads all in one direction. Their upturned roots, vast mats of woody ramifi- 

 cations and earth, presented sometimes a perpendicular wall of a great height. Occasionally 

 one of these upright masses, originating in tlie habit of the pine to send out a wide-spread but 

 shallow rootage, would unexpectedly fall back into its original place, when, in the clearing of 

 the land, the bole of the tree to which it appertained came to be gashed through. In this case 

 it would sometimes happen that a considerable portion of the trunk would appear again in a 

 perpendicular position. As its top would of course show that human hands had been at work 

 there, the question would be propounded to the new comer as to how the axe could have reached 

 to such a height. The suppositions usually encouraged In Mm were, either that the snow must 

 have been wonderfully deep when that particular tree was felled, or else that some one of the 

 very early settlers must have been a man of exceptional stature. — Among the lofty pines, here and 

 there, one more exposed than the test would be seen, with a piece of the thickness of a strong 

 fence-rail stripped out of its side, from its extreme apes to its very root, spirally, like the groove 

 of a rifle-bore. It in this manner showed that at some moment it had been the swift conductor 

 down into the earth of the contents of a passing electric cloud. One tree of the pine species we 

 remember, that had been severed in the midst by lightning, so suddenly, that the upper half 

 had descended with perfect perpendicularity, and such force, that it planted Itself upright in the 

 earth by the side of the trunk from which it had been smitten. Nor may we omit from our 

 remembered phenomena of the pine forests hereabout, the bee-trees. Now and then a huge 

 pine would fall, or be intentionally cut do%vn, which would exhibit in cavernous recesses at a 

 great distance from what had been its root end, the accumulated combs of, it might be, a half- 

 century ; those of them that were of recent construction, filled with honey. — A solitary survi- 

 vor of the forest of towering pines that, at the period to which we are adverting, covered the 

 hais on both sides of the Don, is still to be seen towards the northern limit of the Moss Park 

 property. This particular tree has been gracefully commemorated in the columns of a local 

 paper : 



O ! tell to me, thou old pine tree, 



O ! tell to me thy tale, 

 For long has thou the thunder braved, 



And long withstood the gale ; 

 The last of all thy hardy race. 



Thy tale now tell to me. 

 For sure I am, it must be strange, 



Thou lonely forest tree. 



Tes, strange it is, this bending trunk. 



So withered now and grey. 

 Stood once amid the forest trees 



■Which long Tiave passed away : 

 They fell in strength and beauty. 



Nor have they left a trace. 

 Save my old trunk and withered limbs 



To show their former place. 



Countless and lofty once we stood ; 



Beneath our ample shade 

 His forest home of bouglis and bark 



The hardy red man made. 

 Child of the forest, here he roamed, 



Nor spoke nor thought of fear. 

 As he trapped the beaver in his dam, 



And chased the bounding deer. 



No gallant ship with spreading sail 



Then ploughed those waters blue. 

 Nor craft had old Ontario then. 



But the Indians' birch canoe ; 

 No path was through the forest. 



Save that the red man trod ; 

 Here, by your home, was his dwelling place. 



And the temple of his God. 



Now where the busy city stands. 



Hard by that graceful spire, 

 The proud Ojibeway smoked his pipe 



Beside his camping fire. 

 And there, where those marts of commerce are 



Extending east and west. 

 Amid the rushes in the marsh. 



The wUd fowl had its nest. 



But the pale face came, our ranks were thinn'd. 



And the loftiest were brought low, 

 And the forest faded far and wide. 



Beneath his sturdy blow ; 

 And tiie steamer on the quiet lake, 



Tlien ploughed its way of foam, 

 And the red man fled from the scene of strife 



To find a wilder home. 



And many who in childhood's days 



Around my trunk have played, 

 Are resting like the Indian now 



Beneath the cedar's shade ; 

 And I, like one bereft of friends, 



■^'"Ith -winter whitened o'er. 

 But wait the hour that I must fall. 



As others feU before. 



And stlU what changes wait thee, 



When at no distant day. 

 The ships of far off nations. 



Shall anchor in your bay ; 

 "When one vast chain of railroad. 



Stretching from shore to shore. 

 Shall bear the wealth of India, 



And land it at your door. 



A short distance above the hop ground of which we have spoken, the Don passed immediately 

 underneath a high sandy bluff'. "Where, after a long reach in its downward course, it first im- 



